Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke at a rally in Thessaloniki on Wednesday to promote New Democracy’s (ND) candidates in the upcoming European Parliament elections (EP election), which will take place on Sunday.
The key messages that the incumbent prime stressed were ND’s commitment to staying in the Eurozone, and the importance of Thessaloniki’s support for ND to come out ahead in Sunday’s election.
The first comment about Greece’s place in Europe was directed at the main opposition SYRIZA party, blamed by ND and many other political forces back in 2015 as jeopardizing the country’s membership in the Eurozone, and by extension, in the European Union itself – widely known at the time and circulated around the world as “Grexit”. A SYRIZA-led leftist-rightist coalition government under Alexis Tsipras ruled Greece from 2015 to 2019.
“For ND, the European orientation is a national duty … and victory always starts from Thessaloniki,” Mitsotakis told supporters, referring to Greece’s second largest municipality after Athens.
He also didn’t miss the opportunity to remind the crowd of New Democracy’s connection with northern Greece, as the party’s founder, statesman Konstantinos Karamanlis, was born in Serres prefecture, in the eastern Macedonia region.
Finally, on a lighter note, he commented on the fact that the light rain could not prevent the rally, saying, “we proved, once again, that we are an all-weather party.”
According to all opinion poll results over the recent period, New Democracy is widely expected to exceed 30% of the popular vote on Sunday, with the “unofficial goal” being to retain or exceed 33% – which was its result in the last EP election, in May 2019.
